Penny Rechkemmer Andresen - Environmental Health Sciences

Penny Rechkemmer Andresen seemed instinctively drawn to public health—even while finishing her master's degree in anthropology.

"I was looking for some way to apply anthropology to situations happening now," she remembers. "I happened upon public health. I didn't even know it existed."

Andresen made her first foray into the field in 1997 as a student in the Public Health Administration and Policy program. By 2000, when she received her M.P.H., Andresen wanted to pursue a career in academia. "Environmental Health seemed like the right fit for me," she says. "In my anthropology work in Nigeria, I would see the influence of the environment on public health."

Andresen was thrilled with the support she received in the program and credits her professors and advisors with helping her pursue interests in international health and research, including her dissertation work in India exploring women's respiratory health and their cooking fuels. She completed her Ph.D. in August, and then began a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. There, she is merging environmental health science with community outreach through community-based participatory research.

Too often, she explains, "people just go out and do public health, and the community is not really involved." Andresen strives to build partnerships with the community. "That way they get feedback, and you make sure they have a vested interest in the research."